Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill

I move, That the Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

I want to acknowledge the work of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for their time and their contribution to improving this bill. The objective of the bill is to strengthen the regulatory functions of Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA). This bill responds to the decade-long failure by the NZTA to properly carry out its regulatory function. In response to that failure, I commissioned a review into the regulatory capability and performance of Waka Kotahi, and this bill responds to the findings of that review.

I believe that 16 written and four oral submissions were received on this bill, and I want to thank the submitters for their suggestions. As reported back by the committee, 10 submitters supported the objective of the bill. I understand that more than half of the submissions only commented on the proposals for tackling unsafe speeds, and that across the speed-related provisions, some submissions were in support and others opposed, but most raised suggestions to improve the bill.

Of the submitters that did address the review of the NZTA, they were generally supportive of the introduction of the new director role, although some submitters raised questions or made suggestions regarding aspects of that position. I’m pleased to note that following deliberation, the committee has made a range of adjustments to the bill and is unanimously supporting the bill, as amended, be passed.

In relation to the director role, the committee recommends that the director is appointed for a period of up to five years but can be reappointed. The terms and conditions of employment for the director must be determined by an agreement between the NZTA board and the director. It’s important to note that the intent of this position is that the director of safety is statutorily independent of both the board of NZTA and the Minister of the day and the ministry. The committee also recommends that the role of the director is clarified by stating that the director is an employee. The clarification will also ensure that the definition of the director’s independent functions fully captures that policy intent. I support these additions, given the leadership role that the director plays in the land transport system and that the fixed term recommended ensures that the director can be refreshed periodically in line with the general practice in the State sector for chief executives.

In relation to funding, clause 5 of the bill establishes a new mechanism to enable the Crown to incur expenses or capital expenditure to fund the agency’s regulatory functions. This mechanism allows for all road users in the land transport system to contribute to the costs of operating the safety regulator. This provides a strong public benefit across the system. The committee recommends amending the bill to require the NZTA to consult the public before it seeks funding from Ministers to support its regulatory functions under this section. I support that because it will help to ensure that any request for funding is integrated with the NZTA’s overall funding review processes.

On the point of confidentiality and sharing of information, the committee recommends an amendment to include new provisions on this. I support their recommendation because without the explicit ability to share information across the New Zealand Transport Agency, information silos are likely to occur, leading to safety issues being missed. One of the key benefits of retaining the NZTA as a single consolidated entity responsible for infrastructure and services for land transport, as well as the land transport safety regulator role, is that it’s able to leverage its knowledge and real-time understanding of the land transport system to achieve good outcomes across all of those roles. So this will mean that information can be shared freely within the transport agency for the purpose of performing or exercising any of its functions, duties, and powers.

Moving on to regional transport committee functions, the committee recommends that any additional functions allocated to regional transport committees may only be prescribed through regulations made under the Land Transport Management Act (LTMA) rather than under any Land Transport Act. Regional transport committees are established under the LTMA and all of their functions are set out under that Act. This recommendation will ensure the functions of regional transport committees remain set out in one place, providing clarity to those committees and to local government and the public. I support this recommendation. The regional transport committees play a vital role representing the voices of their local communities, negotiating the content and direction of the three-year regional land transport plans with Waka Kotahi.

The committee also had some things to say about the rules around committees. It recommended that the powers set out in clause 104 of the bill should be narrowed to more precisely describe the purpose of these committees. Clause 104, inserting new section 159A, enables rules to require the Transport Agency to establish committees, and the amendment proposed will specify that any committee required to be established under this section will be for purposes associated with speed management. Further clarification about how these committees function is recommended by the select committee, and these will be provided by three amendments to new section 159A(1) of the Land Transport Act, including the following: enabling rules to set out that the director may appoint members to a speed management committee; clarifying that the definition of interest be interpreted to mean as provided for in the Crown Entities Act 2004; and, thirdly, ensuring that the rule may, rather than must, set out the date on which the committee is to be dissolved or a process by which that date is determined. I support these, as they provide additional but useful detail regarding the purpose, the functions, and the powers of these committees.

The committee recommends also clarifying how by-laws will interact with land transport records on the register. The register of land transport records is intended to be the last step in the process for making various land transport decisions, including, for example, speed limits. Road controlling authorities such as councils currently set speed limits on their local roads through by-laws. Therefore, there are thousands of speed limits set out in by-laws that will need to be transferred to one central register. The clarification that the committee recommends is to require by-laws to be included in the register and it will determine how conflict or overlaps between records on the register and the by-laws are resolved. Again, I support this clarification.

The committee recommends also clarifying certain minor matters regarding the creation of land transport records and providing for regulation-making powers to support the operation and the administration of the register. This is provided for in clauses 107A and 110 of the bill. I support all of these amendments. The regulation-making powers support the establishment, maintenance, and operation of the register. These powers were previously proposed to be set out in a range of secondary legislation under Land Transport Acts. This recommendation provides clarity to the registrar and the public by bringing these requirements into one place in regulations under the Land Transport Act.

The committee recommends that the commencement date of the bill be 1 September 2020, with all clauses related to the review of the NZTA to come into force on 1 April 2021 or earlier by Order in Council. The original date in clause 2 of the bill was 1 July 2020. I support changing the commencement date to reflect the passage of the bill through Parliament and to provide greater flexibility around the timing of the appointment of the new director role and other changes to the NZTA.

There were some recommendations, also, on consequential, transitional, and savings provisions in the bill. Lastly, the committee recommends that the bill is amended to include and provide for any necessary provisions in that regard, and I support those.

Taking these amendments into account, the bill will ensure that the NZTA Waka Kotahi’s regulatory function and leadership role within the land transport system is strengthened and clarified. It addresses a number of things that were identified in the review of the NZTA’s regulatory performance. It does this by establishing the Director of Land Transport to provide a greater focus on regulatory delivery and to drive more accountability for regulatory outcomes and decision making in the New Zealand Transport Agency, and by strengthening the agency’s regulatory function so that it has the tools that it needs to do this job effectively, ultimately keeping people safe within our land transport system.

Again, I want to thank all those who submitted on aspects of the bill, and I want to acknowledge their participation in the democratic process. Their views have been heard. I’m committed to ensuring that the NZTA not only builds the best, most efficient, and sustainable transport system that our country can hope for to move people and goods across our island nation in a way that supports the economy and quality of life but we also have an obligation to ensure that the transport system is safe for all New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill and just to acknowledge the detail that the Minister was able to, in his allocated speaking time, convey after the work of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, deliberated and reported back to this House.

We all know the background to this legislation was the tragic loss of life in a vehicle accident. Mr William Ball lost his life when a seatbelt failed. That ordinarily would have been picked up through an inspection, and that, of course, caused a review of the process that took place and that’s where some regulatory failure was identified.

So the Ministry of Transport then took on the services of a reviewer, MartinJenkins, who commissioned a study to bring independent advice to the secretary of transport, not only looking at the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA)’s processes but also looking at the Ministry of Transport and their role in monitoring the NZTA. They, essentially, discovered that the NZTA had three different functions that needed to be far better put together. They had the role of being the regulator, they also had the role of being the infrastructure deliverer, and they also had the role of being the investor. What they discovered was that during the early stages of the NZTA’s development—its establishment and development—there were some lacks discovered in the regulatory regime. So hence the review and hence the report, which the NZTA, the Minister, and the Ministry of Transport, have all welcomed and the outcome has been, I think, this bill, which has brought certain changes.

Certainly, I think the most prominent change is the establishing of the role of director. I think that is a very, very important role. It creates, in a sense, somebody who has statutory independence to function to ensure that the regulatory regime that the NZTA Waka Kotahi must follow, and also has that degree of independence where the Minister, the agency, or secretary may not direct the director in terms of performing that function.

I think that what this is offering is real strengthening of a very important agency that affects every one of our lives. It ensures that we can have confidence that the regulatory regime that is to enforce the regulations, of course, particularly around the public safety, are strongly in place. I just have to say that the NZTA do have a very strong culture of public safety; it’s one of their driving principles. And we know that this is going to improve them even more. So we’re very pleased to support this legislation going through the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Hello to the other side of the House—no, still asleep. That’s all right; I’ll take a call instead on this Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill. They’ve fallen asleep at the wheel, it would seem, on the other side of the House, which is, I suppose, to be expected from them on a Friday afternoon.

I won’t take too long on this bill. Mr Young has done a very job of traversing the key aspects of it, but I did just want to highlight a couple of pieces that are particularly relevant in acknowledging the unfortunate incident that led to the identification of some regulatory failings and, therefore, the need to rectify that through, largely, the creation of the new director role within this piece of legislation.

That actually brings it into line with the Civil Aviation Authority and Maritime New Zealand in terms of having that role, that regulatory function of a director. So from that perspective we support that aspect. Having independence, though, is critical to that, and that was one of the amendments that we put forward at the select committee to ensure that when performing a statutory independent function, the director must act independently, and the Minister, agency, or secretary may not direct the director performing that function. So that was an important distinction to get in there, just to ensure that independence in that regard. The other aspect, sitting alongside that, was actually time-limiting that to a five-year term, as well, which I think was an appropriate measure to ensure the ability of that process.

I will just touch briefly on two other aspects. The Minister elaborated on the establishment of the register and the speed limit process changes. The speed limit one is, I think, an important one to, again, gain consistency across different road-consenting agencies, the territorial authorities or local councils, to ensure that there aren’t conflicting by-laws coming through in that process. So the streamlining and centralising of that is, I think, an appropriate move in that space.

Largely, there are some pretty technical and minor changes but the new director role, I think, is an important function, and I will be following with interest how that plays out over the coming year. So we do support this bill and won’t hold it up any further.

I rise to speak, briefly, in support of the Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill. It’s an important piece of legislation that arises, as has been outlined, from MartinJenkins’ review, which identified some clear regulatory improvements that needed to be made. What I’m also pleased about in this bill is that there’s a really clear focus on road safety and the need to have an agency that is fit for purpose to do the most important thing that we can really ensure, which is that when New Zealanders use our transport system they’re kept as safe as possible.

So I commend the Minister of Transport for that work. I thank members around the House for their support for the legislation and I commend it to the House.

Bill read a second time.